


One Night With A Mandalorian

by Melo_Mapo



Series: Din Djarin's Secret Network of Past Lovers [3]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Daring rescue, Din is a softy, F/M, Meta story full of romance tropes, OFC is a romance writer, Or Rather Daring Abduction, Pre-Season/Series 01, Swooning, shenanigans ensue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:07:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26490874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melo_Mapo/pseuds/Melo_Mapo
Summary: Din was nineteen and hideously bored when he read his first bodice ripper. He was on his way back from his third-ever mission, the trip was long, and the cover was calling to him.Din was twenty-two and a true romance novel addict. Audio or text, it didn’t matter, if he had downtime and privacy, that was what he was doing.Din was thirty-two and an accomplished bounty hunter when he took a job on an Inner Rim planet that paid very well. He should have known it looked too easy to be true. Now, he has to kidnap his favorite romance author and deliver her into the hands of her uninspired competitor. What to do?!
Relationships: Din Djarin/Original Female Character
Series: Din Djarin's Secret Network of Past Lovers [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1940539
Comments: 38
Kudos: 86





	1. Secret Desires

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [MissTeaVee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissTeaVee/pseuds/MissTeaVee) and [Maggie G](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maggie_GoldenStar1530/pseuds/Maggie_GoldenStar1530) for taking an impromptu conversation about crossword puzzles in the SW universe and turning it into a story prompt.

Din was nineteen and hideously bored when he read his first bodice ripper. He was on his way back from his third mission as _beroya_ for the clan, and the trip was a long one. His clan had entrusted him with some errands for the trip back, among which picking up the latest publications from Harlequin House, as requested by a couple Covert members. The covers all sported females in too-tight dresses being embraced from being by rugged men wearing armor, and at first Din had scoffed. But now, he was bored, his datapad loaded with, for once, something other than dry mechanics manuals and repetitive action pulps. So he read. 

Din was twenty-two and a true romance novel addict. Audio or text, it didn’t matter, if he had downtime and privacy, that was what he was doing. If discovered indulging in his guilty pleasure (Paz really needed to learn how to knock), he said he identified with the strong silent heroes, rescuing the protagonist from terrible situations with great skill and noblesse. But in truth, he particularly enjoyed the stories where the damsel (sometimes a damoiseau) only needed a tiny bit of saving before the reader realized they were brave and strong in their own way. He recognized himself in the blushing, socially awkward debutantes as much as he empathized with the grizzled, désabusé saviors struggling to do what was right. Most of all, he loved stories of star-crossed lovers triumphing in a world where the odds were stacked against them. At heart, he wanted for himself the kind of romance that would care not for barriers such as an inability to flirt, a beskar helm, empty pockets, and a life of violence. A man could dream. 

Din was thirty-two and an accomplished bounty hunter when Greef Karga told him he had an unusual job for him. It was a kidnapping job on an inner planet. Not Din’s typical bread and bantha butter, but the client had requested “somebody impressive-looking”. All previous hunters the Guild had offered had fallen short of the client expectations… until a friend of Greef had passed the contract on to him, and Greef had offered the Mandalorian’s services.   
“I didn’t even have to show a picture, I just mentioned your creed, and your track record, and the deal was concluded. Well, you could refuse, of course.”   
Then Karga flashed Din the contract’s value, and, well, there was no refusing it. While taking bounties alive was usually more expensive, this one contract was easily triple the usual amount.   
“What’s the catch?”  
“No catch,” assured Greef, “and actually, the client will also cover gas, docking fees, lodging, and food for the duration.”  
“The duration?”  
Greef smiled:   
“Mando, if you ask me, this client’s a newbie. Unaware of your… efficiency. They seem to think it will take you six to ten days to get it done.”   
“The target is in hiding?”  
“I don’t have much info, but I don’t think so. The client seemed sure she wouldn’t expect it.”   
Greek pulled up a hologram of the target, a middle-aged Twi’lek named Yaj'vabil, with skin a light orange, dressed rather finely. She had wrinkles at the corner of her eyes like someone who smiles often, and looked to be no warrior. Din sighed internally. This looked too easy to be true, but he would have time to figure out what the catch was. Plus, who said no to an all-expense-covered trip to the Inner Rim?


	2. Dark Stranger Revealed

Birren was a quiet planet. Agricultural land for the most part, with a few larger cities reaching for the sky without the demesure of Coruscant. The fob led Din to a sleepy neighborhood in what looked to be a rather bourgeois area of the capital city. The amount of manicured greenery providing elegant privacy was a clear indicator of the affluence of the owners: the taller the hedge, the richer the proprietor. It also made for perfect cover for Din’s surveillance. Out of his element with such a mission, he had quickly understood that the full armour - and helm - would not make for a very discreet approach. Thankfully, plenty of locals seem to work hard to preserve anonymity and wore hooded cloaks, sometimes even masks over their faces. After a quick reconnaissance trip, he had gone shopping and now wore one such cloak and full mask. 

Din felt supremely uncomfortable, almost naked, as he ambled down the street. He slowed down as he passed his target’s house, which fence was topped with spikes and covered in beautiful but thorny vines. Thankfully, the neighbor’s house had a more modest wall. Having spotted a blind spot in the camera coverage of the neighbor, Din paused, and looked up and down the street. Not a soul. He hauled himself over the neighbor’s fence, ran for the nearest bushes, and crouched there for a moment, taking in his surroundings. At least, his cloak, which was forest green, allowed him to fade into the shadows within the elaborate gardens. 

He quickly spotted the perfect tree, and shimmied his way up. The tree grew at the edge of the neighbor’s property and offered a great view of his target’s house. It was midday, and he hadn’t expected anybody to be home, but the puck clearly showed Yaj’vabil was. Taking his helmet out of the bag it was concealed in, he switched the mask for the helm, sighing in relief at the familiar weight. Using his visor’s enhancements, he scanned the house and identified the room the Twi’lek was in: the study. It took Din a second to realize the shelves supported not just holopads but legitimate _ paper books _ . This made the woman richer than he had thought at first, higher class than the neighborhood and fence height suggested. She was presently sitting at a desk, typing, the holoscreen blurry at that distance but clearly covered in text. 

With a sigh, Din settled in to wait. 

And wait.

And wait. 

Save for a couple of trips to the refresher or the kitchen for a caf refill, the target spent the whole afternoon typing away while Din wondered why a seemingly so respectable lady had done to get a hit put out on her. Her loose pants and cardigan didn’t scream crime lord. Was she maybe blackmailing Din’s client? The request for a formidable-looking bounty hunter, while not unheard of, was a bit peculiar, especially combined with the “taken alive” request. Looked like an attempt at serious intimidation rather than wanting to administer the  _ coup de grace _ . 

Finally, as the sun started to set, the woman got up, suddenly in a hurry, and disappeared in another part of the house, one that Din couldn’t see. An hour or so later, she was running out her front door, clearly dressed for an evening event of sort in a curve-fitting outfit. Din barely caught a glimpse of the navy dress, a lovely contrast to the Twi’lek’s fauve skin-color, before she slipped in her landspeeder. The designer crimson vehicle quickly disappeared around the corner, leaving Din to mull over his options. Deciding to investigate the house while its owner was gone, Din abandoned his tree and headed for the fence separating the two properties. Contrary to the street-facing fence, there were no spikes to keep Din from scaling the barrier and dropping on the other side. Noting he had narrowly avoided landing in a rose bush, Din grinned to himself. Between the fragrant flowers, the twilight, and the fancy house ahead, he felt in the middle of one of the romances he so enjoyed. There was however no fathier-eyed lady waiting for him in the library, only information. And no convenient trellis to get there either… 

Regretting not having a grappling hook equipped instead of his flame-thrower, Din resigned himself to breaking in through the kitchen door. The house had a couple cameras covering the gardens, but it was easy to keep out of their limited range. They also were not the kind to automatically detect intruders, only passive recording devices. Of course, there was a chance a droid was around, probably a maid droid rather than a security one, but if there was, it had not come in front of any window Din had watched for all those hours. Unlikely. 

Din made quick work of the lock on the kitchen door, and took a look at the kitchen - mostly unused, but for the caf machine, trash overflowing with empty takeout containers. Moving on, he checked the rooms on the first floor: a dining-room, a living-room and some kind of music room, all very neat and quite dusty. They looked beautiful, but impersonal, devoid of signs of habitation. Din confirmed they were empty of signs of life as well before moving upstairs. The first floor looked more lived-in than the ground floor had: a bedroom with some clothes strewn on the bed, the refresher air still humid from a shower, and a spare bedroom with junk piled on the bed: empty shoe boxes, a broken datapad, a plush loth-cat wearing a bow, and more paper mail Din had ever seen. 

More curious about the library than about the unopened mail at the moment, Din moved on to the last unexplored room. He was standing at the threshold, taking in the empty cups on the desk, the cozy armchair by the bow-window, and the knick-knacks on the shelves in between the holopads and books, when the last of the daylight illuminated two things: 1) every single paper book on the shelves was a title by Veilvor Ystetheec, his favorite romance writer, and 2) glaring at him from the open text document on the holoscreen was the names of the main protagonists of Veilvor Ystetheec’s ongoing series,  _ Alderaan Hearts, Alsakan Souls _ .

Yaj’vabil was Veilvor Ystetheec.

“Well, fuck.” 


	3. The Lady Meets her Match

The event was in full swing when Din made his way into the ballroom. Din only felt moderately bad about using his client’s money to buy a ticket to the auction, as the money benefited an animal shelter. On one hand, attending a high society party was far out of his comfort zone, and on the other, the irony of gathering intel on a romance writer at a  _ bona fide _ ball thrilled him. Plus, it was a costumed masquerade, which fit him perfectly. Even kitted in his full Mandalorian armor he was not the most outrageously outfitted in the crowd. There was a rotund human wholly engulfed in a Hutt outfit, and a Hutt painted blue wearing an azur mask, features finely carved and topped with fake  _ lekku. _ A woman in full Alderaan regalia was taking so much physical space that her friend, dressed in a brown, hooded robe and a grey tunic, had to use long tongues to hand her canapés. Din was amused to even spot a few people wearing outfits clearly meant to be Mandalorian armor, but of course none of it really was beskar, and the pristine paint showed that, even if it was durasteel, it had never seen actual use. 

The room itself had marble floors, graceful columns, and tall, arched windows with colorful glass. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling, clinging softly from the air displaced by the dancers occupying the center of the room. The live band, heavy on the string section, was playing some formal dance that had attendees weave around each other gracefully. The buffet looked very tempting, and Din regretted not being able to stuff some petit fours in a bag for later. He did pretend to browse the offerings as he moved about the room, trying to spot his target. He had decided he wanted to gather a bit more information about her before going through with kidnapping her. Thankfully, that navy dress and flaming skin was hard to miss, even if Yaj’vabil now wore a feathered half-mask to complete the look. She was quite stunning, Din thought as he ambled closer, pausing behind a column as she passed him on her way to the bar. Up close, her skin had a hint of pink mixed with the orange that reminded Din of sunsets on Jakku. Her dark blue dress was velvet, her half-mask satin, and her lipstick ruby red. Din wondered why she wasn’t turning more heads. 

“Credit for your thoughts?”

Surprised, Din whipped around. A woman in a sleek white pantsuit and smooth white mask was nonchalantly leaning on the column he was using as cover. The featureless mask was unsettling, but her voice was clearly amused as she added, after a moment of silence:

“I can introduce you, if you wish.”

And before Din could protest, the woman waved her empty flute in the air and bellowed: 

“Yaj! Yaj! Over here! And grab another drink for me will you?”

The noise was thankfully mostly lost to the roar of conversation and music around them, but Yav’vabil had definitely heard, as she waved back and quickly made her way to them, a fresh flute in each hand.

“Oh, Lorita, am I happy to see you! This is quite the turnout, congratulations.”

“Thank you for coming, Yaj, You have my undying gratitude as always. I know you’d rather languish home with your writing.” 

“Erg, don’t remind me, I’ve been low on inspiration lately. I’m happy for the distraction. But where are my manners, I’m Yaj’vabil, nice to meet you.” 

The Twi’lek had turned to him and offered her hand and so Din had no other option but to clasp her forearm and shake, though by the little “oh” her mouth formed she had not been expecting it. 

Releasing her hurriedly, Din cleared his throat, and said:

“Delighted.”

It was, after all, true. Circumstances apart, she was still his favorite author. 

“Are you a friend of Lorita, then?”

Before Din could answer, the white-clad woman slung an arm across his shoulders, and answered in his stead: 

“More like comrades in our shared appreciation. You are stunning tonight, darling.”

Yaj’vabil waved the compliment away:

“Pff, you’re such a flatterer. What is your name then?”

That last part she had addressed to Din, who after a beat wondering if he should lie, opted for:

“Most people call me the Mandalorian.” 

“Oooh, very mysterious. Lorita, aren’t you glad somebody actually takes your theme seriously?”

“Positively ecstatic Yaj, I mean look at that guy for example, he definitely has a liberal interpretation of ‘come masked’.”

Lorita pointed at a man whose over-the-top gladiator costume seemed to aim at revealing as much of his muscled body as possible. His “mask” consisted in a band of dark makeup crossing over his eyes, highlighting his striking pale irises. 

The night progressed much in the same vein, Lorita and Yaj’vabil exchanging quips about the other attendees, commenting on the veracity of the historical outfits, and exchanging idle gossip about the local celebrities and politicians. Most of that gossip seemed to revolve around who had gotten what pet lately, and rather than the usual sordid bedroom affairs. Thankfully, they did not seem to expect Din to hold up a third of the conversation, though they also made space for him to drop one-word comments at his leisure. He had admitted early on to being transient on Birren, just passing through the system and having taken an interest in the party, and they took great pains to explain who was who - again mostly through qualifying which pets they owned, or what kind of house they lived in. 

When it was Lorita’s time to head backstage and prepare for making announcements about the shelter, Yaj turned to Din and offered her hand: 

“Care for a dance, Mandalorian?”

“I’m afraid I do not know how to dance.”

“You move like somebody who’s aware of his body, spatially speaking. Just follow my lead and you’ll be fine.” 

Din hesitated further, but the song had changed and couples were now spinning slowly around the floor, and it indeed did not look complicated. Eventually, Yaj’s expectant smile on her crimson lips convinced him, and he took her hand. 

She pulled him to the edge of the dancing crowd, guiding his left hand onto her shoulder and his right at her hip. Din internally bemoaned having worn his thick gloves for he could not feel neither velvet nor skin. Probably for the best, however, as the dancing was leff straightforward than he originally thought, and it took all his wits and combat-honed reflexes to step in time with Yav without stomping all over her feet, daintily clad in heeled sandals that did nothing to protect her toes from Din’s heavy boots. 

“You’re doing well, you can stop looking at our feet now.”

Raising his head, Din let himself be led as he gazed at Yaj. Up-close, he could see her warm brown eyes beneath the mask, crinkled at the corner to match the smile on her lips. The mask, which looked uniform from afar, was actually a layer of satin topped with blue-on-blue lace detailing which faded into iridescent black and electric blue feathers on the left side. It was beautifully crafted, and fit her features so well it had to have been moulded. 

The song faded slowly and couples came to a stop, leaving the dancefloor or chatting as the band shuffled instruments around for the next piece. Yaj had not let go of Din, and so he did not move his hands either. The mood had… shifted, and he felt flustered. This was grossly unprofessional, to dance with his bounty like this, to sympathise. He looked more and more unlikely for this woman to be any of the kind of criminals he usually dealt with, and he felt wrong-footed. The music picked up again, a faster, more involved number, and they had yet to unhand each other, or move whatsoever. A dancing couple grumbled as it avoided them, and Yaj stepped out of the embrace, walking back to where the attendees were hanging about eating, drinking, and chatting. 

“Well, that was… very nice. I’d offer to go to the buffet, but you seem committed to the whole helmet thing.” 

Din felt a bit hysterical all of a sudden - ‘the whole helmet thing’ indeed. He quickly consulted the time on his visor. Almost midnight already. 

“I apologize, I must attend to some pressing matters,” he said, “please thank Lorita for hosting such a lovely party.” 

“I… but you’ll miss the actual auction! Did you not come to adopt, then?” 

“My lifestyle isn’t conducive to pet ownership, I’m afraid.”

Yaj seemed to hesitate for a moment, opening her mouth and closing it again before finally saying:

“Farewell then, Mandalorian, and thank you for the dance.”

“The pleasure was all mine,” Din assured her before leaving.

He had a lot of thinking ahead of him, and research to do about his client and bounty both. 


	4. An Improper Deal

Din was sitting in the armchair by the bow-window in Yaj’s study when she came home. He had been pondering the situation, made enquiries with his contacts, and come to the conclusion that there was something very sketchy with this contract. It was time to break protocol entirely and have an open conversation with his target. 

The hour was so late it tipped into being very early, but Yaj seemed to be in no hurry as she headed for the refresher, then to her room while Din waited for her to notice the reading light he had turned on. It’s clad in her pajamas, humming a waltz, and looking soft and sleepy that she stepped into the study. Din bit his lip to keep from laughing when he realized her pajamas where a pants and shirt ensemble decorated with a repeating pattern of junk-food eating womp rats: one of them was shoving fried dough in its mouth, another was gnawing on roasted nuna legs, and the last was slurping noodles. She was walking toward her desk when, finally, she spotted Din. 

“What the…!”

Yaj dived for her desk, opened the bottom drawer, and drew a blaster. By the time she was aiming at Din, his hands were already raised. Of course, he could have drawn and shot her twice in the time it had taken her to get her weapon, and he had disabled the blaster when he had found it earlier in the night, but he wanted her to feel at ease. 

“It’s too bad,” Yaj said, voice shaky but hands firm on the blaster, “you’d been the perfect gentleman so far, but I really don’t fall for the stalker trope.”

“I know, that’s why I like your writing the best.”

“Oh, a creepy fan, even better.” 

“That’s not why I’m here. Look.”

He slowly waived his right hand, in which he was holding the tracker, then dropped it on the ground between them. 

“Is this… If you’re trying to get to Lorita through me, I won’t help you! I can’t believe those horrible cattle ranchers would go this far, but they’ve no respect for animal suffering, so it doesn’t surprise me that much.” 

“I’m not after Lorita.”

He dropped the puck which he’d been holding between his thumb and palm in his left hand. Blaster still aimed at him, Yaj used her foot to bump the button on the puck. Her hologram sprang forth, rotating slowly.

“Maker be damned.” 

Yaj sat heavily in her desk chair, blaster hanging limply from one hand, forgotten. 

Din lowered his hand, resting them on his knees, and waited. This had to be a bit of a shock. 

After a long minute, Yaj put her blaster away in the drawer and closed it. 

“You haven’t killed me yet, so I’m pretty sure I won’t need that.” 

“The contract says ‘alive’.”

“Ah. A kidnapping then. The creepy fan theory is back on the table.” 

“Does the name Zeime Kindathe ring a bell?” 

Yaj’s face contorted, and though Din wasn’t sure which emotion was behind the expression, the rage was clear in the Twi’lek’s voice when she exclaimed:

“That blurrg bastard! I know what’s this about now.” 

She ran from the room, and Din followed at a distance. In her spare bedroom, she rooted through the pile of fan mail before extricating a large envelope from the mess. 

“The gall! The absolute impudence of this excuse for a man!” 

She rushed back to the study and spread the contents of the envelope on her desk. It seemed to contain a handwritten letter several pages long, as well as a wad of official-looking papers. 

“Do you know what this is, Mandalorian?”

Yaj suddenly froze, and turning to Din, she said in a small voice:

“Oh. You _are_ a Mandalorian. An actual, in the flesh-and-beskar _Mandalorian_.”

“I am.”

She sat again.

“I apologize for any inappropriate comments I might have made.” 

“I apologize for breaking into your house.”

She laughed nervously, rubbing her face with her hand. 

“By the Maker, what a night.” 

And she promptly passed out, Din barely catching her before she hit the floor. 

“Ah. That would be the adrenaline comedown,” he told her unconscious body. 

\---

The sun was starting to rise when Yaj woke up a couple of hours later. Din had sat her in the armchair, feeling that entering her bedroom and putting her in bed might be pushing it. He had to admit she looked lovely when asleep, soft and peaceful, attractive in a way that was opposite every single thing Mandalorians usually valued. She groaned as she came to, massaging her lekku where they met her head, and Din pointed out:

“There’s water and painkillers on the window sill.”

She turned her head towards him a bit fast, and immediately swore. Din winced in sympathy: while he had never outright fainted, adrenaline always left him nauseous and with a headache. After considering the glass and medicine bottle, which Din had found in her refresher’s cabinets, she shrugged and popped a pill in her mouth chasing it with a few gulps of water. 

“Since I’m still in my home, I take it you might not want to see your contract through.” 

“I haven’t decided yet. It would be disastrous for my reputation, but…”

Din gestured to the letter and paperwork on the table.

“... but you’ve pieced it together and are not into forced marriages?”

Yaj sounded cautiously hopeful, and Din nodded. The letter read like the ramblings of a narcissist so high on his own power he would not even attempt subtlety in his threats and manipulations. There was some bullshit about how Yaj’vabil would have never gotten out of the gutter if he had not picked up her first novel, and how she’d betrayed him by not renewing her contract with his publishing house, and how they could do great things together.

“No way I’m letting the guy who published rapist bullshit like _Ecstatic Starbloom_ anywhere near the holo rights of _Flame-lilies in Bloom_.”

Yaj grinned:

“You truly _are_ a fan!”

Din was glad for the helmet, for he could feel his cheeks reddening at his outburst and at the glee in her voice. 

“How does a Mandalorian get into romance literature anyway?” she asked, curious, and still smiling. 

“He’s asked by his _aliit_ , his clan, to buy _The Core of the Sun is Only As Hot as You_.”

Yaj groaned a threw herself back in the armchair:

“Oh, no, I hope you don’t hold that one against me. I was young and impressionable and after being edited it was 50% Zeime’s drivel.”

“It… wasn’t that bad. I was young myself.” 

“How young?” Yaj asked, calculating. 

Din cleared his throat and grabbed the now empty glass at Yaj’s side.

“Young enough not to know better,” he answered before making his exit to the kitchen, bumping in the doorframe in his haste. 

Din closed the kitchen door, briefly removing his helmet to drink some water and place cool hands on his burning cheeks. His composure and helmet back on, he foraged in the cabinets for some snacks, snuck a couple under the helmet, poured more water in the glass, and made his way back upstairs. 

Yaj was sitting at her desk, manipulating documents on her holoscreen, still in her pajamas. Din handed her the water, the snacks, and retreated to the armchair. 

“Ok, so, Zeime doesn’t want me dead. That’s good, because that means we can both fulfill your contract, and save me from his clutches.” 

“How so?”

Yaj sighed, rubbing the end of her lekku, alternating between each. 

“I’ve got to call Lorita. Thankfully, she never sleeps the night of the Annual Auction, because she has to bring back all the non-adopted animals back to her practice.”

“I’ll give you some space.”

“No, no, stay, this way I won’t have to repeat the conversation to you.” 

Yaj placed the call and set the holopad so that they both appeared in the camera’s field. It rang only a couple times before Lorita’s bust appeared. She had gotten rid of the golden comb and other accessories that had tied her hair down earlier, and her afro now haloed her. The white pantsuit had been switched for some healer’s robes. She looked tired but happy.

“Good morning, lovely! You got home ok? Wait… Is that Shy Guy from the auction? I thought you had decided not to give him your contact?”

Yaj threw a guilty glance at Din, who was too stuck on being called _shy_ to fully take in what the next sentence meant, and she soldiered on: 

“Well er, Lorita, listen, don’t panic, I’m safe, but, well, do you remember Zeime Kindathe?”

“Your ex-editor? The one who came out of nowhere with his twisted marriage proposal?”

“The same. Well, turns out he won’t take no for an answer. He put out a kidnapping contract with Bounty Hunter’s Guild on me.”

“What the kriffing kriff, Yaj! Are you ok? Wait… are you telling me Shy Guy is an actual _bounty hunter_ , with a contract on _you_?!”

Yaj turned to Din and rubbed her right lek, and she sounded as embarrassed as Din felt, his embarrassment deepening as she explained:

“He is. Thankfully, he, er, is a fan, so, well, we’re trying to figure a way out of this.” 

“Yaj, my dove, only you could have the only romantic bounty hunter out there end up with your contract. You’ve got the luck of a Canto Bight winner.” 

“I am thanking the Maker, believe me.”

“So what can I do to help?”

“Well, do you still have the contact info of the marriage lawyer you hired when you divorced Anya-Double-Life?”

“Oh, Nulja Hir? Sure, let me find that for you. She moved back to Onderon, but she can probably consult with you. What’s your idea?”

“Well, if there’s one thing I remember from that whole debacle with your ex, is that Birren marriage law doesn’t take kindly to polygamy.”

“Hmm, true, but, wait, are you thinking what I’m thinking…” 

“I think it’s time I get myself married.” 

“But, darling, I’m still under the ban for another year myself! Plus we wouldn’t be able to divorce for at least three more years, and I love you dearly, but that’s a long time to be in a platonic marriage. You don’t even swing my way, Zeime will see through it in a second.” 

Yaj kept silent, and merely pointed at Din.

“Oh, honey, this is straight out of one of your books. I’m in.” 

“So, Mandalorian, want to get married? I promise I’ll divorce you real fast.” 

Both women were now looking at him, hopeful. Din got out a strangled:

“Can I opt to wait for the lawyer’s advice before I answer that?”

There was a suspended moment, and then Yaj admitted: 

“You know, I’m still a bit drunk, terrified, and very, very tired. I think you might have the right idea there.”

Lorita chuckled, before joking:

“Kriff. I guess we’ll have to switch from Shy Guy to Cool-Head Mando, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thanks for reading! Your comments and feedback are keeping me writing and posting, but that does mean this is unbeta-ed. If there's a generous soul out there willing to beta read the whole thing once it's done, give me a sign. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this!


	5. Rules of Negotiation

By the time Yaj had sent a message explaining the situation to Nulja Hir, the lawyer, the sun had been fully up, and Yaj had been exhausted. Din knew he could have kept going, but had been unable to refuse Yaj’s offer of her guest room, especially after she had seized the comforter and simply tossed everything on the bed to the ground in one firm shake. She’d offered a change of clothes - that, he had refused, mentioned the lock on the door - he had thanked her, and had bid him goodnight - he had returned the sentiment. 

Now, a good six hours later, he was up and feeling rested, having slept only partially armored, and unhelmeted, a rare luxury when he was not on the Crest. The water shower he quickly took also helped tremendously. While he was not really on board with the marriage plan, he had good hopes the lawyer would have some good advice. Yaj might be Veilvor Ystetheec, ten-time awardee of Best Romance in a Galactic Year, and Din’s secret celebrity crush, but he knew nothing of the real woman, beyond her skill at making the fifteenth book in a series funny and unique. And her choice of pajamas. Shaking his head to himself, he looked through the kitchen, finding almost all he needed to prepare porridge, Mandalore style. He was actually pleasantly surprised at Yaj’s spice selection, though he carefully added the hoter ones to his bowl only, preparing a sweeter version for his host. He locked himself in the guest room to eat,then made his way back to the kitchen. He was washing and drying the dishes when he heard Yaj get up and use the shower as well. He reheated her food and was putting the bowl down on the table when she found him. She was dressed in cream linen pants and a powder pink blouse that was just translucent enough to be made darker by her sunset skin below. Din quickly averted his eyes, setting the bowl of boiled mealgrain in front of her instead. 

“Eat while it’s warm.” 

“Good morning to you as well, Mandalorian.” 

“You can call me Mando.” 

Yaj guffawed:

“I guess that’s progress. You know, if we do get married, I’ll need an actual name. I doubt the officiant will take Cool-Head Mando for the records.”

Din groaned aloud, exaggerating his reaction:

“Please, anything but that. I’d rather be in there as Shy Guy.” 

Yaj laughed, shaking her head. She took a few bites of the food, before putting her spoon down. 

“What a mess. I can’t believe I’m considering getting married to a bounty hunter I met yesterday.”

“I can’t believe I’m risking my reputation, and so the main source of income for my clan, but this is the Way.”

“This is the Way? Are you referring to the  _ Resol’nare _ ?”

Din startled - her pronunciation was terrible, but he was surprised she knew the word to begin with. 

“No, actually the  _ Resol’nare _ would put providing for the tribe first, but my  _ aliit, _ my clan, abides by a wider set of moral principles. One of which is to protect the innocent.” 

“I’m guessing a bounty hunter doesn’t often get contracts on innocents.” 

“You’re my first.” 

Yaj’s eyes widened comically and both her lekku curled up to her chin. Din had the sudden urge to bang his helmet into the nearest wall.

“Please, not a word,” he said, and the embarrassment in his voice was clear even to his own ears. Yaj’s shoulders shook in silent laughter but she smoothed her lekku back down, and eventually said: 

“You’re lucky Lorita isn’t here, she is merciless.” 

“I suspect 90% of Niza’s lines in  _ Alderaan Hearts, Alsakan Souls _ are direct Lorita quotes.”

Something Din couldn’t identify fleeted across Yaj’s face, but the way her lekku wiggled was pleased, and she sounded a bit awed:

“Here’s another thing I can’t believe: having Mandalorian fans. I’ve been doing research on Mandalore for my next series, it’s fascinating.” 

“You’re ending  _ AHAS _ ?”

Yaj nodded: 

“I started writing this series when Alderaan was a physical place, live and vibrant, one of the main influences in the Core. It feels disrespectful now, as a foreigner, to write such light content about a culture with so few survivors struggling to keep it alive.” 

Din considered her words a moment, before sharing:

“Growing in the Outer Rim, a lot of my knowledge of Alderaanian culture comes from content like your books.” 

“This is even worse. I’m sure I’ve misrepresented a lot, even with Alderaanians on the proof-reading team.” 

“And you think you’ll have an easier time with Mandalorians? Good luck finding any willing to talk about losing Mandalore.” 

“I rather thought marrying one would do the trick…” 

Din shook his head. Pained, he told her:

“Don’t joke about this, Yaj’vabil. Not about Mandalore, and not about marriage. Whatever piece of paper I sign to get you safe from Zeime, it won’t be marriage by my standards.”

Yaj, chastised, avoided his eyes and half-heartedly dug into her now cold porridge. Din sighed. 

“My clan’s creed… Our interpretation of the  _ Resol’nare _ is more restrictive than most. Some Mandalorians will show their face to people they trust, even  _ aruetii _ , that is, even to non-Mandalorians.”

Porridge forgotten, Yaj was looking at Din, hanging on his every word. It was... compelling. She had very expressive brown eyes. 

“I… My clan… We don’t show our face to other living beings. Regardless of circumstances.”

“But… what about…”

“Regardless of circumstances,” Din repeated firmly.

There was a moment of silence, and Din could tell Yaj was mulling it over. How uncompromising his Way must seem, he thought, to somebody who revelled in telling stories about the sensual pleasure of a kiss, of bodies twinning without barriers. 

“No exceptions?” she finally asked. 

Din smiled, letting it bleed in his voice when he answered:

“Not for many of my clan, no. But for me and a few others, with our  _ Alor _ ’s agreement, we’ve decided on two exceptions:  _ riduur _ ,  _ ade _ . Our spouse, and our children.”

“Oh. So all that talk of marriage…” 

“Is a bit of a sore spot,” admitted Din. “Not a lot of time for relationships when chasing criminals in the Outer Rim.” 

They were silent for a moment, and Yaj rubbed her right lek with her left hand in a way Din knew meant she was embarrassed. 

“I apologize, Mando,” she finally said.

She got up, her porridge fully gone - to Din’s satisfaction - and squeezed his shoulder between pauldron and neck as she passed by. As she washed her bowl in the sink, Din retreated to lean on the door jamb. After a moment, she broke the silence:

“Thank you for the explanation. And for breakfast.”

“Sure. I’ve heard back from some of my contacts by the way.”

“Good news or bad news?” 

“Good news. Zeime Kindathe is at his private retreat on Duneeden. Not only that planet is where he wants you delivered, but it also doesn’t have any kind of mercenary presence.

“Uh, ok?”

“It means you are safe from him contracting freelancers on top of his Guild contract.” 

“People do that?!” 

“When they are impatient and have the credits.” 

Gone was the teasing Yaj, or even the serious Yaj from earlier. She looked anxious, her lekku restless as she set the bowl and spoon to dry on the rack. 

“I’ll go check my inbox. That lawyer should be up by now, even with the time-difference.” 

She made for the door, which Din currently blocked, and he got out of the way to let her pass. She looked like she could use a hug, but Din was so surprised by wanting to be the one to provide it that the opportunity passed as she did, headed upstairs to her study. 

\---

Yaj found him a few minutes later, enjoying the summer air outside, sitting his back against a tree as he cleaned his blaster. She must have spied him from the study window because she had brought her own blaster down, which she dropped on his lap, the plasteel of the weapon clinging against his durasteel cuisse. 

“Nulja Hir answered. She’ll be available to holo in three hours. In the meantime, I can’t help but notice this has been somewhat tempered with.”

She sounded put upon, but whether her disgruntlement was at the delay or his meddling with her weapon, Din wasn’t sure. 

“Here, I can show you what I did.” 

Yaj sat next to him, closer than Din thought she would, and even through the helmet’s filters she smelled good, like something light and floral. Distracted, Din fumbled the small cleaning tool he was handling and swore softly. Yaj was magnanimously silent when Din pulled off his gloves for dexterity, and so he did not miss her slight gasp as his hands became visible. He turned to her slightly, and her lekku were curled under her chin, in surprise he thought. He had taken his gloves off to cook and do the dishes, but she had not been present. Unexpectedly, it felt momentous, for Yaj to see his skin, and Din berated himself. His romance novel addiction and this weird hunt were getting to his head, no doubt about it. 

“Surprised I’m human?” he asked, attempting to break the mood.

“No, I…” 

Yaj turned towards him a bit more, tentatively reaching her hands to his. Din offered his left, and she gently traced it. She had regular-sized hands for a woman her height, and his own hands weren’t that large for a man’s - not like Paz’s giant paws - but the contrast was still striking. Her manicured fingers traced his callouses, supple sunset skin against rough, pale beige one. He had not been unarmored in the sun for years, and so had lost the dual tone of bronzed backs, pale palms he remembered from his childhood. Regardless of sun exposure, he suspected she always had those slightly pinker palms, and more amber backs. Unprompted, his brain wondered if that dual tone translated to other parts of her body, and if she had body hair, as some Twi’lek did and some others did not. Gently extracting his hand from hers, he picked up the tool, her blaster, and showed her how he had unplugged a couple of cables. The repair was a simple one, but required precision and time, which is why it was the perfect way to disable a blaster without breaking it. Calmed by the familiar work, his hands and voice steadied. Feeling daring, he even prompted her to try it for herself, the perfect excuse to touch her hands with his bare ones as he showed her how to disable then repair the weapon. All the while, the line of her unarmored body at his side, the smell of her perfume, and her basic questions were reminders that he was getting into uncharted sectors. 

He could not tell if the knot in his gut was dread, or excitement. 

\---

The chime of an incoming holovid connection is what eventually brought them back inside. They took the call in the study, Nulja Hir appearing before them. Even through the blue of the projection, one could tell she was human, with dark skin to rival the black of her official judicial robes. Her locs, gathered at her nape, were pale with age and reached her waist. Her face was wrinkled with worry lines, and she barely bothered with introductions before she dove right in. 

“Yaj’vabil, tell me, this Zeime Kindathe, the one who put the hit out on you, what’s his legal claim to your work?”

“None! I used to have a publishing contract with Blooming House Publishing, and he was my editor then, but the contract expired, and I left to self-publish.” 

The lawyer took a note, then asked:

“Why does he think he can coerce you into a marriage then?” 

“Well… He and I used to have sex, before I realized he was a scumbag.”

Nulja Hir raised an eyebrow, unimpressed: 

“Ah, yes, I always forget how backwater Birren is when it comes to this. So, unknown to you, you were in a common law marriage with this man, which means that, by Birren legislation, and even though your dalliance is now over, if he can get you to sign a marriage contract now, he can retroactively claim ownership over books which copyrights you took along with you when your publishing contract ended. Plus everything you wrote since then.” 

“Yes. And since we did sleep together, I can’t rat him out to the authorities on Birren for trying to abduct me. Even if I win the trial and get a divorce, he’ll still get to claim the rights for the books I wrote when we were involved, and by the time I would get the rights back for the rest, you can be sure he’ll have sold the video rights away.”

“Hmm. And escaping capture this time around would just get another contract put on you.” 

“Yes. I was already very lucky that the Mandalorian ended up having principles.” 

She smiled at Din then, and he bowed his head at Nulja Hir, who was looking upon him with interest. 

“And of course, the bounty hunter would prefer to get paid, and so for you to get delivered to Mr. Kindathe at some point.” 

“I would not wish to repay his kindness by staining his reputation.”

“A most interesting conundrum.”

Din glanced at Yaj, who seemed a bit discouraged by the lawyer’s response, but the lawyer suddenly exclaimed and, in a swish of robes and locs, stepped out of the holovid’s frame. She came back a moment later, thumbing through a holopad, reading to herself for a bit. Finally, she asked:

“And you said he is awaiting, er, delivery, in the Corusca Sector?”

“Yes, on Dunedeen.”

“Hmm. By Birren lay, if the officiant is Birrenese, a couple can get married on any soil they wish. But that’s not why I asked. I think you had the right idea, planning on showing up already married.” 

She aha-ed and read aloud a convoluted bit of Birrenese legalese which, she summarized, made invoking the retroactive clause impossible if another marriage had been contracted since the facts had happened.

“Now, my dear, do you happen to have slept with anybody since you dumped Mr. Kindathe, anybody you’d feel comfortable invoking that Common Law marriage with?”

Din glanced at Yaj’s lekku, thinking they would do the embarrassed curl he had witnessed before, but instead she just blushed, her cheeks getting steadily pinker as she rushed to say:

“I’ve been, well, busy with writing, and er, there was this one guy, but no, no, I really wouldn’t feel comfortable getting a Birren marriage with him.” 

“That’s what I thought,” just answered Nulja Hir, popping off and on the holovid as she paced in her office, pulling books and pads off her shelves. 

“See,” she muttered, mostly for herself, “what makes it difficult is that Birren tends to only recognize other governments’ marriage laws when they are even more conservative than their own. Thankfully, conservative sometimes means intense prenuptial contracts, which is what you need, in order to keep your book rights.” She flipped back and forth between the index and three different sections of the book she held for a minute, before adding: “Of course, the time limit on this is another constraint. Coruscant would have worked, but they require a one-month wait time before publishing the banns and the wedding itself. Giving time for people to change their minds, I suppose.” 

The lawyer sighed and held the heavy tome for a moment, gaze faraway, every finger marking a page. Eventually, her gaze cleared, she stared right at Yaj, and exclaimed:   
“Weerden! Weerden will work. The banns can be announced remotely, there’s only a two-day wait, it allows for prenuptial agreements, and it’s recognized by Birren. Bit of a frozen rock, but otherwise a pretty planet.” 

Yaj’s shoulders sank in relief:

“Oh, I’m so glad!”

“Well,” the lawyer pointed out, “you still need a groom.”

Yaj turned to Din immediately, and he felt the urge to raise his hands in the air, like she held him at gunpoint. But before he could protest, the lawyer rejoiced:

“Oh, this is perfect! There’s no agreement between Mandalorian and Weerdenese laws, so as long as neither of you say the Mandalorian wedding vows, and you both sign the Weerden prenup contract, you can be technically married with none of the obligations.” 

Yaj looked so expectant, Din felt his reservations melt. It was only a technical marriage, and in a week, he’d be back at the Covert with three times the credits he usually brought in. With the premonitory certitude that Paz was going to laugh himself to death, Din said:

“Well, it’s not every day you get to save the damsel by marrying her. I guess I’m in.”


	6. Moonlight Road

“Are you sure you’ve got everything you need, darling? You’ll be ok? I wish the shelter could spare me.”

“Maker, Lorita, it’s going to be fine, go back to your patients. Mando will be there, I’ve got my blaster, and the plan is sound.” 

“You shoot that asshole editor if he so much as grazes a lekku, ok?”

“I promise.”

“Shy Guy, you better bring her back in one piece.”

“Will do,” confirmed Din.

Lorita sighed and grabbed Yaj in a tight hug.

“And Yaj, that bet still holds,” the human added in a whisper, low but loud enough for Din’s helmet to pick up. 

The Twi’lek groaned and pushed her friend away from her:

“Arg, Lorita, you’re the worst.” 

“Oh, honey, I love you too.”

“Just check my mail, will you, the fans sometimes send cake, and it’s a mess when it goes bad.”

“You got it, love.” 

With those farewells done, Din and Yaj boarded the Razor Crest. Yaj was bringing a very modestly-sized bag, and dropped it off in the hold before climbing after him into the cockpit. Din sat in the pilot’s seat, and though he offered her the co-pilot’s one, she elected to stand, observing him toggling this and that as he did the pre-flight checks. He’d taken Zeime Kindathe on his promise of all expenses paid and had gotten some repairs made on the Razor Crest, slipping a few credits to the spaceport clerk so that she would bill him the whole thing as fuel. Oh, and he’d filled half the hold with extra fuel canisters too. Thinking of it, it was probably a good thing he had gotten the shielding repaired and even reinforced, as the Crest was presently quite the explosion hazard. 

Prompted by Din, Yaj sat in the copilot’s seat for take-off, asking a few questions about his antique, and barely reacting when the ship broke atmosphere. She had not lied about being comfortable in space: as soon as they were in hyperspace, she got up and explored. Din’s ship was quite small: the hold took the whole bottom, while above, the cockpit was at the prow, and the living quarters at the stern, both accessible from the cockpit ladder. Din checked the autopilot was all set and went to find Yaj in the living quarters. She had just finished inspecting the cabinets in the tiny galley, and, as Din watched her, she checked out the refresher, exclaiming in delight when she realized it had a real sonic shower and a more private vactube than the one in the hold - which originally was meant for when cattle was on board. She skipped the hatch to the escape pod, just peering in on her way past, and made her way to the last door, the one leading to Din’s cabin. She opened it and contemplated the inside in silence: it was really just a long, narrow space occupied wall to wall by a knee-high cot, with rotating compartments underneath for storage. 

“How come there are three seats in the cockpit, but only one cabin?” she eventually asked.

“The ship’s designed for a very friendly crew?” Din suggested, but despite the end of her right lekku twitching, Yaj’s face was stern when she said:

“Mando…”

“That whole space was redone,” he explained, “the original design didn’t have a refresher, nor an escape pod.”

“You omitted to mention you only have one bed,” she berated him.

“I have a bedroll, you can have the bed.” 

“What? No! I’m not going to steal your bed.”

“You’re my guest.”

“And you’re the guy I’m relying on to fight whatever private security Zeime siccs on us when he realizes we’ve double-crossed him. No way I’m not ensuring you sleep properly.”

“I’m perfectly able to sleep on a bed roll.” 

“And with your helmet on too, I bet.”

“Of course. It’s bad enough I have to abduct you, I’m not also going to lock you in one room just so I can walk around unhelmeted.”

Yaj sighed, put upon.

“I’d offer to share the bed, but you wouldn’t be able to sleep sans helmet then either.” 

“Honestly, I doubt I’d manage to get any sleep, period.”

Yaj’s lekku curled up.

“Oh, really?” she asked, suggestively. 

Din felt his cheeks catch fire and hurried to add:

“Because I never sleep next to other people! Not… for any other reasons.” 

Yaj laughed at his scrambling, but then admitted:

“I know what you mean, I’m the same.”

“We could do shifts, though,” offered Din. 

“Hmm, that could work. Our cycles will get messed up anyway, what with the time difference between Birren, Weerden, and Duneeden.” 

Yaj and Din drifted back to the cockpit, where they went over the schedule for the next few days and the living arrangements aboard the Razor Crest. They had left Birren in the afternoon, and they had a few hours before either of them would feel hungry or sleepy. Yaj slipped cards out of her pants’ pocket, and they played a couple rounds of sabacc. It was pleasant: Yaj asked questions about Mandalorian culture Din sometimes evaded, sometimes addressed, and sometimes couldn’t answer. In exchange, she indulged Din’s fanboy interrogation about her books and characters. 

When it came time to worry about dinner, they cooked together, cramped in the galley. Or rather, Din cooked a very basic porridge, while Yaj observed. The Twi’lek was astonished at the array of spices the bounty hunter had onboard such a small ship, and Din explained that with how repetitive the base foods he ate was, he needed the variety of flavors the spices provided. Mealgrain, noodles, mealgrain, haarshun, and some more mealgrain… While she tried a spoonful of the stuff plain mealgrain porridge, he prepared two half bowls. He placed them on the small table, which when folded up along the wall closed the pantry, and gestured for her to sit.

“Spicy food is important for Mandalorians, so we have different words for how different spices feel, when eating them.” 

Yaj sat and nodded, attentive. 

“These have been spiced the way I eat them. They might be too much for you, so just try a small bit of each.”

He pushed the first bowl toward her, the porridge stained red by the spices. Acting like the porridge was going to come alive and slip down her gullet to kill her, Yaj took the tiniest spoonful. After chewing and swallowing, she said: 

“This really isn’t bad at all.”

She took a bigger spoonful, and worked her way through that one too. She was on her third when Din started to see her face reddening. She immediately put her spoon down and said:

“Whoa. The heat really creeps on you.”

“Yep. That feeling, right there, that’s  _ heturam _ .” 

“Eh-too-ram?”

Din nodded.

“Do I dare try the second one?” 

Din shrugged:

“Up to you. It’s a different sensation.” 

Yaj got up and spooned some plain porridge in a clean bowl, ate half of it, and sat back down at the table. 

“Ok, bring it on,” she declared, pulling the second bowl to her. 

That porridge had just a hint of yellow to it, yet Din must have dosed it more generously, because the first spoonful Yaj took into her mouth had her make a surprised face that quickly tipped into panic. Had she been alone, it looked like she might have spit the entire thing, but instead she swallowed without chewing and coughed as soon as her mouth was empty. Rushing to grab a clean kitchen rag, she blew her nose and dried her tears in it, still coughing. 

“Holy stars, what  _ was _ that?!”

“ _ Hetikleyc _ is how we call the sensation. The spice is galaar radish.” 

“It’s… good for when you have a cold?”

Din laughed. Eyes puffy, nose running, Yaj was still beautiful in a way that made Din feel slightly guilty. She was the opposite of the physical Mandalorian ideal: no muscle mass to speak of, and with a comfortable layer of fat. A soft, middle-aged civilian. And yet, she was so very attractive. The amount of skin she showed at all time was giving Din palpitations, and she was so generous with her emotions, her lekku and face all over the place, in turns amused, angry, curious, flirty, as the conversation demanded. Wrenching his eyes away from her as she mixed a bit of the first bowl to her plain bowl, he busied himself with cleaning up the cooking, banging himself in the cabinets much more than he usually did. He had been clumsy lately, another side effect of Yaj’s proximity, and that was another source of shame. He could demolish a patrol of security droids in a few minutes with no injuries to himself, but have him pass Yaj in a hallway, and he suddenly tripped on empty air. It was getting to be a bit of a problem, he admitted to himself as he hit his hip in the corner of the table on his way to the cockpit, distracted by the sight of Yaj licking her spoon as she scrolled on her holopad.

\---

The evening and night proceeded as planned: Din took his meal in the cockpit as she showered, then they played a bit more sabacc, foregoing strip sabacc in favor of truth sabacc, a version of the game in which the loser of each round had to answer the winner’s prompt with a personal story. As the night progressed, the questions got more and more intimate, from “first time you mishandled a weapon” to “first time you mishandled somebody else’s genitalia”. Thankfully, the ridiculous stories went both ways, and there was something freeing in being prompted, the only effort that of telling the truth rather than trying to find the right time to share sensitive information. And the flirting… The flirting was exhilarating. Din had little practical experience with it, but had done plenty of research. The third time Din had used one of Veilvor Ystetheec’s lines on the woman herself, they’d both burst out laughing. By the time Yaj had retreated for her sleep shift, so tired she didn’t even bother grabbing her bag from downstairs, Din had felt buzzed on the enjoyable night and the promise of the next few days. 

\---

“Hey, Mando?” 

Yaj’s voice floated to the cockpit from the refresher, which Yaj was using before her second sleep cycle came around. Din was at the piloting console, checking the settings for their arrival on Weerden in another 10 hours. 

“Yes?”

“I forgot to take a change of clothes.”

“Do you want me to bring you your bag?

“That’s ok. Just, don’t turn around, I’ll run down to the hold!”

Din dutifully stared at the hyperspace beyond the window, waiting until she was halfway to the ladder to say:

“You should probably know I have a rearview camera in my helmet.” 

In truth, the quality was a bit grainy in low light, so Din could only make out the curves of her back and the towel slung around her hips. He still got a satisfying yelp out of Yaj, right before his full field of vision became obscured, camera included. Chuckling, he waited to hear her feet hit the deck below to pull her towel off his helmet. 

Every hour with Yaj on the ship saw Din either embarrassed or aroused, sometimes both at once, and he had to admit that it was not unwelcomed. He spent a lot of long, dreary hours in hyperspace, alone on the Razor Crest, training or cleaning his gear just for something to do. While he missed the freedom of going around unhelmeted, it was exciting to have somebody aboard, sharing his space, bantering. He sometimes went on missions with others, had run with a mercenary crew even, back when he was young and stupid, but this felt different. It was just the two of them, heading to Weerden to get married. Just the two of them, flirting. 

He wouldn’t mind the flirting going a bit further, he realized, and that was a bit novel. Din didn’t crave sex the way most others seemed to, and he could count on one hand the number of people he had wanted to touch or be touched by in his life so far. That Yaj’vabil had made her way onto the list in barely 48 hours was surprising, but pleasant. Din looked forward to figuring out how far they would take it. 

The whole endeavor was a bit of a surrealist vacation to him: instead of chasing some criminal on a Maker-forsaken desert planet, he got to elope with a fascinating woman, and get paid better than usual for it too. 

Yaj’s annoyed voice, rising from the hold, interrupted his musings:

“Oh, kriff, I always do that.”

“Do what?”

“Forget to pack something when I travel! I’ve done dozens of book tours and research trips, and I still manage to forget to take at least one thing.” 

“What’d you forget?”

“My pajamas. I just slept in my shirt yesterday, but it’s dirty now.”

“I can lend you something.” 

“I would appreciate it. Everything else I packed is really not sleep friendly.” 

A minute later, Din was dropping Yaj a shirt and pants of his, eyes averted. He heard her catch the bundle, and a second later she said:

“It’s not a button shirt, is that ok?”

“Uh, sure?”

“I’ll stretch the neckline with my lekku,” Yaj warned.

“That’s ok. It’s just a shirt.”

Din stepped back from the ladder hole as Yaj emerged from the hold, rung by rung, until the shirt stopped and two enticingly bare legs followed suit.  _ Just a shirt _ , indeed, Din thought. Yaj delicately cleared her throat and Din raised his visor to meet her gaze. 

“Sorry, I didn’t realize you, er, weren’t wearing pants. Did I not give you the pants?”

“You did, but they didn’t fit. You’ve got quite the narrow hips under all those layers.”

Still under the influence of long, shapely legs, Din blurted: 

“Narrow hips and a flat ass, if you believe Vizsla.”

Yaj made a strangled noise, half-surprise, half-laughter, before asking:

“Who’s this person? And what kind of ass do they have to call  _ yours _ flat?”

Din, overdoing his dramatic sigh to cover up being quite pleased at her remark, explained:

“He’s a member of my clan. He’s a big guy, probably two heads taller than I, one and half my weight, mostly muscle. It is a truth universally acknowledged that he’s got the most shapely bum of the whole  _ aliit _ .” 

Yaj laughed, then shrewdly asked:

“Wait, is he the ‘insufferable giant teen’ of your story yesterday, the one who kept beating you at hand-to-hand combat?”

“The same.”

“Well, still giant and insufferable, then, if not a teen anymore.”

“He can be… self-righteous. But he’s a good man, and a friend. Even if he still beats me at hand-to-hand combat.” 

“Somehow, you don’t seem annoyed.”

Din shrugged:

“I beat him at other things.” 

“Hmm. You sound smug.”

“Maybe… just a bit.” 

“What can you best him at?”

Images of Paz flashed through Din’s mind. Paz surrendering to Din’s hands after a sparring session gone heated, sweaty bronze skin revealed between his rucked up shirt and the waist of his pants, abs trembling as Din runs an ungloved hand up his chest. Paz’s laugh as he let Din shove him against the wall, their hips already finding each other. Paz, blatantly ‘just passing by’ Din’s quarters as soon as Din came back from a mission, and not resisting as Din pulls him in and closes the door. Din smiled to himself, and answered truthfully:

“Precision shooting. The man can’t snipe a target for shit.” 


	7. Captive Bride

The arrival on Weerden and the search for a clerk to marry them had been rather anticlimactic. First off, it was  _ freezing _ . Yeah, yeah, the dip under the clouds on arrival, which had revealed gently sloping valleys glittering in purple frost, amethyst glaciers jutting at sharp angles, was impressive. But after that, well, they had been forced to gear up in all the layers they could just to take the fifteen minute walk from the spaceport to the city hall. Their progress had been slowed by the amount of clothing they wore and the light gravity of the planet both. Yaj’s face had been so cold she’d been slurring when trying to explain they were trying to get married. The clerk had believed they were drunk, and so unfit for the vows. It had taken ten minutes of arguing for Yaj’s face to regain full mobility, after which the clerk had finally acknowledged they were serious and had looked up their banns in the database. 

Now they were sitting in a small, stuffy office, with grey filing cabinets, grey carpet, grey desk, and grey blinds. Even the small plaque reading “Master Micamberlecto” was silver. The only spots of color were the Frozian officiant’s brown fur and his shivering black whiskers. After letting them take off a couple of layers in the warm office, he invited them to sit. They went over the basics together, then the Frozian handed them paperwork to complete, and so Yaj and Din sat next to each other, typing in the necessary information. For long minutes, the sound of the heat system kicking on and off was the only disturbance. Din handed his datapad back first, and the Frozian looked it over.

“Hm, yes, very good, very good. The prenuptial agreement was reviewed and approved along with the banns, you are all set there. Ah, no birth certificate, sir?”

“I am a Foundling.” 

“Ah, very well, then. The beskar speaks for itself, I suppose. Bit irregular, but not unheard of.”

The officiant’s whiskers rustled as he worked his way through the rest of the form. Finally, he put down the datapad and crossed his fingers. 

“Now, now, one last thing. I can’t help but see you left your name blank. I’m afraid we do need at least that one piece of information.”

From the corner of his visor, Din saw Yaj pause in her filling, though she kept her eyes on the paperwork. Din breathed in. He was committed now, better go all in. 

“It’s Din Djarin, sir. D-J-A-R-I-N.” 

“Thank you, thank you. And you, madam, almost ready?” 

Yaj’s voice was a bit tremulous as she answered:

“Almost, just a second.”

Only a few breaths passed, which Din was careful to take in and out, deep and regular, before Yaj handed her datapad back to the officiant. Master Micamberlecto made quick work of her form, and soon, he asked: 

“No witnesses?”

“Just ourselves,” answered Yaj. 

“Good, good, no fanfare then.”

The Frozian cleared a space on his desk, shuffling and piling papers, and pulled out a large datapad from his drawer, a dated but lovely piece of technology with gold scrollwork engraved onto the frame. He booted it up, clicked through a few menus, and then turned it their way. 

“Yaj’vabil, do you consent to marrying Din Djarin here present, of your own and free volition?” 

“I do.”

Din Djarin, do you consent to marrying Yaj’vabil here present, of your own and free volition?”

“I do.” 

“Your fingerprint here, sir, please. Very good. Madam, yours now, here.” 

They leaned forward, their shoulders bumping through the numerous layers of clothing, and put their fingerprints down. Din blamed the sudden heat suffusing his body on being overdressed.

“Perfect, perfect.” 

Master Micamberlecto turned the datapad back to himself, quickly applied his own fingerprint, added the Weerdenese seal, and finally declared, a smile creasing his eyes. 

“By the powers vested in me, you are now spouses. You may kiss.” 

Yaj let out a bit of a nervous laugh, and turned to Din. She looked, he thought, a bit panicked. Glad he wasn’t the only one feeling unsteady, Din reached out for her. As soon as his hands touched her face, her eyes fluttered closed. Increasingly warm, overcome by something he could not call anything else than tenderness, Din lowered his head until his helmet’s crown gently bumped her forehead. 

“This,” he whispered, “is a  _ kov’nyn _ , a Keldabe kiss.” 

Yaj sighed and snuck a hand to his nape, gripping tightly, and Din would have sworn that time stopped, just for a moment. He regretted every time he had made fun of the cliché when encountering it in his reading. 

His whiskers whooshing with the force of his wistful sigh, Master Micamberlecto said:

“Oh, lovely, lovely. Weddings are my favorite. Now, please, my next appointment is in ten minutes.”

\---

“Kriffing frozen planet! Beautiful landscapes, my kriffing ass! Which I can’t feel anymore either.” Yaj’s complaint was muffled by the scarf she had wrapped around her face to try and avoid the slurring from before. Din chuckled, but secretly agreed - he was looking forward to leaving Weerden. As they approached the Razor Crest, he used his vambrace to turn the ship on and open the port loading door. They had made a detour by the market for supplies, and they waddled inside with their arms full of parcels. Thanks to the heating system built into his armor, Din was faring better than Yaj - he also wore fewer layers. 

“I’ll go put these away while you melt,” he teased.

Yaj nodded her agreement and he used his cape to bundle the parcels and took them to the galley. That done, he went to the cockpit and started getting ready for departure. The course to Dunedeen was already plotted, but he had received a communication from Greef Karga following his latest ‘update’ to Zeime Kindathe. Din listened to the message - nothing amiss. He double checked the fuel level - tanks still over half full. 

“We’re ready for departure. Are you all set?” he yelled towards the hold.

“N-n-not read-d-dy yet!” came the reply. 

Din walked over to the ladder, and peered down. Yaj was down to a silky black blouse and tight black pants embroidered with gold curlicue. She was also doing little hops around the hold and shaking her arms violently. 

“Everything ok?”

Yaj yelped in surprise, coming to a stop at the bottom of the ladder. Looking up, she explained: 

“I can’t seem to get warm.”

“Come up here. The hold always takes longer to heat up.” 

He went back to the cockpit and she followed, sitting behind him in the co-pilot’s seat. 

“Time to go,” was Din’s only warning as he turned the thrusters on, quickly leaving Weerden behind. 

A minute passed as Din plotted the hyperspace jumps. He had done the calculations the day before, and now just needed to enter the coordinates. Soon, the Razor Crest jumped to hyperspace, the autopilot kicked in, and Din leaned back in his seat. He had anticipated feeling anxious, or maybe incredulous, after the wedding, but he actually felt calm. They had discussed the prenuptial agreement and what it entailed thoroughly. Plus, Yaj was a great person, she deserved to be safe from the likes of Zeime Kindathe. Turning his seat around, Din looked over to his passenger. The Twi’lek was curled up on the co-pilot’s seat, still shivering as she watched the light streak past the window. 

“Still cold?” 

She nodded.

“You should go lay down, get under some blankets.” 

Subdued, she acquiesced again and left the cockpit for the living quarters. A bit concerned, Din followed her and, while she changed in the refresher, started working on removing his armor. Maybe the whole situation was hitting her harder than him? He was down to his chest and back plates when Yaj came out, wearing his shirt again, which had not gotten any longer and barely hid her buttocks. She bent over to set her clothes in her bag, and Din studiously focused on unbuckling the side straps. He was so focused he actually managed to tangle them. Swearing softly, he twisted his torso to try and catch the end of the knot before it tightened. 

“Need a hand?”

Din froze, hyper aware of how close and how undressed Yaj was. Taking his silence for assent, she bent over his side, nimble fingers undoing the mess between his own, immobile hands. The buckle released, and Din slipped the chest pieces over his head. He blindly set them on the kitchen table behind him, with the rest of his armor. Yaj had not stepped away, and Din felt his heart beat double time, his gut tightening as she closed the distance between them and embraced him, tucking her head on his shoulder. After a moment of not knowing where to put his own hands, Din opted for her shoulder blades. They stood, sharing space, Yaj’s breath tickling Din’s neck, until Din realized she was still trembling slightly.

“Come on, let’s get you under some blankets.”

“Only if you come with me.”

“Yaj…” he whispered, pained.

“Din… Can I call you Din?” she asked softly.

“It’s my name, given of my own and free volition.”

“Din,” she repeated, reverent. 

“Just… not in front of others.”

He felt her chin bump into her shoulder as she nodded, then asked again: 

“Come to bed?”

Din put just enough space between them that he could look at her, with her big brown eyes, wearing his shirt with its stretched neck showing her collarbone, her lekku curled up under her chin.  _ She’s aroused _ , he realized with a start,  _ that’s what the curling means. _ His knees a bit weak all of a sudden, he put a bit more space between them, until their bodies didn’t touch anymore, though their hands had found each other. 

“Do you not want to?” Yaj asked, worry in her voice.

Din could not help the amusement from bleeding in his voice as he answered:

“The wanting is not the issue there, Yaj.” 

She bit her lip in an attempt to not look smug that failed spectacularly. Clearing her throat, and smoothing her lekku down, she tried to be serious as she asked:

“What is it then? I’m not under any illusions, I know we will go our separate ways after this whole situation is dealt with.”

Din evaded:

“That might be a conversation better suited for when you’re not an icicle anymore.”

“Just come sit in bed next to me!”

Shaking his head, Din let Yaj lead them to the cabin. 

“I think that conversation might require alcohol,” he admitted.

“We’ve got to celebrate our marriage anyway!” enthused Yaj.

Din was in bed with a cocktail and a half-naked Twi'lek before he knew what hit him. 


	8. Caress and Conquer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning! We are earning our rating in this chapter!   
> If you wish to skip the nasty naked people stuff, stop at "Oh, you’re on, Din’vabil.” and go to the next chapter.   
> The only thing you need to know is that a good time was had by all.

Din was on the Razor Crest, sitting in the pilot’s seat, hyperspace streaming by outside the cockpit. There was somebody with him, standing behind him, his wife, no, his  _ riduur _ . His helmet was off, but he felt at peace, safe. His wife’s hand was running through his hair, and it felt good. But then the grip tightened, painful, and Din called out:

“Yaj?!”

The hand pulled and Din’s head tipped back. Leaning over him was a silver protocol droid, expressionless, and Din could not move, panic overflowing. 

“We must kiss, Master, to seal our union. This is the Way.” 

The droid’s head came closer, closer, closer… until Din felt the slit of its unyielding metal mouth touch his lips.

\---

Din gasped awake, tangled in his sheets, weirdly angled on the bed in a way that had his mouth mashed on the cold metal of the ship. Head swimming, nausea rising, Din rushed on panic-weak legs to the refresher, making it just in time to empty his stomach in the vactube. Alcohol was the worst, and he had not had a nightmare in quite a while. The whole wedding thing was getting to him, then. 

“Din, are you ok?”

The door rattled and Din shouted:

“Yaj, no, stay out! I don’t have my helmet!”

“Oh, kriff!” 

The door slammed shut and, over Din’s next bout of vomiting, Yaj yelled through the door:

“I didn’t see anything, I heard you on time!”

Din stopped heaving and took stock. He felt much better having emptied his stomach. He stood up and rinsed his mouth, then washed his face. He needed a shave and a haircut, but it could wait.

“Hey, I brought your helmet. It’s at the door. Are you ok?”

“I’ll be fine, I just… don’t usually drink so much.” 

“From celebrating last night? But you had, like, three cocktails in as many hours.”

Din let himself slide along the door, sitting with his back to it, and heard Yaj follow suit on the other side. 

“Yes, and I don’t usually drink so much. I’m only ever in cantinas while on the job.” 

“What about back with your clan?”

Din chuckled, the receding panic and nausea leaving him lightheaded:

“With the  _ aliit _ , I better not get more than tipsy or they start extracting embarrassing stories out of me.” 

“Surely, you haven’t got that many they don’t know about already.” 

That time Din laughed outright, letting his head fall back onto the door, staring at the ceiling as he said:

“You mean, like the one of how my target turned out to be my favorite romance novel author and I somehow ended up in a marriage of convenience with her?” 

Yaj huffed a laugh:

“Sure, when you present it like that.”

There was a moment of companionable silence, though Din was starting to itch to put his helmet back on, what with Yaj so physically close. 

“Hey Din,” she said, very softly. 

“Yes?”

The silence stretched before she said, still very softly:

“You know this whole adventure is going to end up in my next novel, right?”

Din could not help but grin, the smile clear in his voice as he answered:

“I figured. But please, skip the vomiting episode.” 

Yaj smiled back:

“Yeah. That one’s just for us.”

Din found the itch to don his helmet had faded, and they sat a while longer in silence, just sharing space. 

\---

An hour later, showered, dressed, and fed, feeling moderately more human, Din joined Yaj in the cockpit, where she was typing on a holopad. She was dressed in the gold-embroidered black pants again, but topped with a fluffy pale pink sweater. 

“Working on finishing  _ AHAS _ ?”

Yaj turned to him, smiling:

“Actually, I’m taking notes on something new. Working title:  _ Beskar Hearts Melt Too _ .”

Din shook his head:

“You’re not losing any time, I see.”

“Gotta keep myself distracted from the unresolved sexual tension,” she gestured between them, “and the perspective of seeing Zeime Kindathe again,” she grimaced.

“We’ve got a plan for the second thing, and we’d have one for the first if somebody hadn’t decided to get drunk,” protested Din, though he knew he’d been the one skirting the subject the night before. 

“Hmm, true. Half a drink in and you got too busy grilling me about Niza and Kyndonuul.” 

The bounty hunter walked in to settle in the pilot seat, turning it to face Yaj’s. 

“Come on, you’ve been hinting at them getting together since book three, and we are on book seven. There’s only so much flirting two people can engage in without going further.” 

“Spoken from experience?”

Din laughs at the unsubtle redirection of the conversation. The night before, discussing sleeping with the Twi’lek had seemed daunting, but after today’s harsh awakening, Din had decided not to waste the time they had left. Picking up the thread of the conversation, he finally said:

“Based on the past few days, yes.”

Replicating her earlier gesture, he waved a hand between the two of them and added:

“Can you imagine four more books of this, and no sex?”

She pretended to swoon:

“Bring out the salts, I think the frustration is already getting to me.”

“Like you’re not entertaining yourself on your sleep cycle, in my bed, might I add.” 

Yaj immediately straightened up, looking scandalised: 

“Wha... How did you know?!”

“Metal carries sound very well… And I know what my ship sounds like. Took me twenty minutes the first time to realize that vibration wasn’t the ventilation system falling apart.” 

“I… probably should apologize for that.” 

“Why?”

“Well… Masturbating in somebody else’s bed is not really appropriate guest behavior.”

Din shrugged:

“Seeing how I abducted you and married you for money, I think we’re square. Plus, the idea of you being just a few feet away, pleasuring yourself was… rather titillating.” 

Yaj’s lekku were starting to curl up, and Din, feeling warmer as the conversation progressed, resisted the urge to wiggle on his seat. 

“Oh. Noted.” 

And Yaj literally typed a memo on her holopad. It was Din’s turn to be scandalised:

“Will  _ everything _ make it into your writing?”

Yaj put the holopad down as she stood up, walking over to him:

“One way, or another, you will certainly make it into my writing. I’d be an idiot not to, you’re the most interesting thing that’s happened to me in ages.” 

She climbed onto his lap, seating herself facing him, her legs bracketing his. Din gulped, forgetting how to move.

“No, the real question, Din, is how come you are so good with the flirting, yet so shy with the touching?” 

Illustrating her point, she seized his bare hands, which were gripping the armrests, and firmy placed them at her waist. 

“You will be the first woman I sleep with,” finally admitted Din.

Yaj considered him in silence for a moment, staring into his visor, and Din wondered if it was hard for her to converse with somebody whose gaze she couldn’t read. Eventually, she declared:

“But not your first altogether. That Vizsla guy and you, right?”

“What… How did you know?”

“Oh, darling, he’s the only one of your clan you mentioned by name, and that was to wax poetic about his ass. I’m a romance writer, I could sense that one from a sector away.” 

Yaj’s impression of Lorita was so spot on, and Din couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Yes, P… Vizsla and I. We’re not a couple though. It’s more of a  _ vod _ thing.” 

Yaj tilted her head, silently encouraging him to say more.

“ _ Vode _ are your siblings, but it’s not about bloodline, it’s more like comrades-in-arms. Vizsla is my  _ ori-vod _ , a mentor and close friend both. Basic doesn’t have a term that gives the relationship justice.” 

“So what if one of you gets a real spouse?” 

Din considered the thought.

“We’d probably stop having sex, but the bond would remain,” he eventually answered.

“And he’s ok with you having other partners?”

“He will probably enjoy my recounting of it as much as we will enjoy the actual encounter.”

Yaj’s lekku, which had relaxed, started curling back up.

“That is… quite the thought,” she said, and suddenly clambered off Din’s lap, grabbing his hand as she went and pulling him up to his feet. 

“Come on, I better do this right, then.”

She led him to the cabin, and asked:

“Apart from the helmet, anything I shouldn’t touch?”

“Anything from the neck down is fair game. Some scars are ticklish, others numb. I’ll let you know.” 

The smile that stretched Yaj’s lips was nothing short of predatory. 

“Good. I can’t see your face, so you better let me hear you.” 

“Only if you ‘do it right’,” teased Din.

“Oh, you’re on, Din’vabil.”

Closing the distance between them, Yaj trailed a hand from the Mandalorian’s waist to his collar, while the other snuck under his thin jacket, petting the skin of his stomach. 

“No armor, and only a long-sleeved, zippered top? Were you expecting this?”

She sounded pleased, and Din hummed.

“I was hoping.”

He busied his own hands with bunching her sweater up from neck to collar, carefully stretching it over her lekku, slipping the soft wool off her head from back to front. 

“You are not wearing anything under that sweater either,” Din said, dropping the soft garment to the floor as he drank in the sight of her. 

“I was hoping, too,” she admitted, peeling off Din’s jacket and letting it fall on top of her sweater. 

They silently worked on each other’s pants as well, bumping awkwardly and eventually going back to their own pants and shoes to finish removing them. Before long, they were standing looking at each other, as naked as they could be. Yaj was glorious, the skin of her belly and thighs pinker than her tan, ochre legs, arms and shoulders. Her lekku were curled, resting between her breasts and chin, curved like the rest of her sinuous body. She looked so  _ soft _ , Din had no idea where to start. 

Thankfully, Yaj took the initiative, stepping forward and dropping a kiss on Din’s shoulder.

“Maker, you’re handsome,” she said, fingers trailing his torso.

Din started at the praise. Sure, he was attractive by Mandalorian standards, an accomplished warrior, but by her civilian, Twi’lek standards? Feeling his jolt, she firmly rubbed her palms down to his hips. 

“Getting shy?” she asked.

“No, surprised. I’m scarred and a bit… hairy.”

Yaj raised her eyes, peering in his inscrutable visor. 

“And it’s hot, honestly. Plus, you’re not that hairy for a human.” 

“Still, more than you,” Din remarked, daring to finally touch her belly and sides, letting his fingers graze her smooth pubis. 

After a moment of consideration, spent quietly letting their hands get acquainted with the other’s body, Yaj asked: 

“Have you read  _ Cloaked Lust _ ?”

Distracted from his ministrations, Din answered:

“The one with the dashing smuggler who finds a baby in a crate, and ends up in a torrid love affair with the nanny?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, what about it?”

“It’s as close to a self-insert I ever wrote.”

“Ok,” Din searched through his memory, “oh.”

Yaj was blushing steadily redder, and Din, leaning forward, whispered in her ear:

“You mean, the one with the very strong, very human, very good fighter?” 

He had always thought Paz could have played Deegan Raho, the smuggler, in the vid adaptation, but Din did fit the bill himself pretty well too. Inspired, Din ran his hands down her lekku, from forehead to tip, barely teasing her nipples before suddenly flexing his knees, grabbing her rear, and lifting her. 

“Isn’t that how that one scene starts?” the bounty hunter asked.

“Oh, Maker, what have I done!” exclaimed Yaj, but she sounded incredibly pleased. 

Din took the two steps to the bed and laid the Twi’lek down, and barely had time to admire the view before she encouraged him down. Laying on their sides, facing each other, they went back to exploring, though, between her lekku and her mouth, Din quickly found himself overpowered. Recalling her request to hear him, he did not bite his sounds down, moaning as Yaj’s clever grasp pinpointed the spots that were more sensitive: his ribs, the edges of the burn tissue on his right hip, the inside of his thighs, his shoulders where the edge of the pauldrons often chaffed. He was hard and wanting, had been since she had dragged him to bed, but Yaj was pointedly avoiding his cock. Willing to take things to the next level, Din redoubled his own efforts, reveling in her soft skin as he caressed her body, pausing at her chest to massage her breasts and play with her nipples until they hardened. Curious, he also touched her lekku, gently rubbing one, then the other, but she quickly moved them to her back, out of reach.

“Too sensitive. I want to be able to focus for a bit longer.” 

Making a mental note to revisit them later, Din finally let his hands travel down to her swollen cunt. Finding her slick, he couldn’t help the whine that escaped him, which she answered with murmured encouragements. Din felt like a fumbling idiot, not helped by how, now that he’d gone further, she’d decided his dick wasn’t off limits anymore. 

“Yaj… Yaj, give me a minute.” 

The Twi’lek stopped, holding him without moving.

“Too much?”

“Too good. I want to have a couple neurons left for the task at hand.” 

And he demonstrated by using his middle finger to circle her entrance while his index teased her clitoris. Yaj groaned, and the hand she had wrapped around him tightened, but she otherwise did not move it. With more space to think, Din pushed his exploration further, alternating between lavishing attention on her clitoris and taking her with one, then two fingers. When Yaj’ body started tensing, her back bowing in pleasure, Din slipped his free hand between her body and the bed, and rubbed her lekku, one after the other, firm but not tight. The effect was immediate: she keened, her body tensed, and she swore as she came. Din slowed his mouvements but kept touching her, coaxing aftershocks out of her until she slipped her lekku out of his loose grasp, and pushed the hand on her sex away. 

“Kriff, Din.”

“Hmm?”

“Oh, don’t look so smug, I still taught you everything you know.” 

Din laughed: 

“You’re right, T.J Krun’s sex scene are garbage.” 

“Erg, why you’d think a Hutt can write good humanoid porn is beyond me.” 

Before Din could quip anything back, Yaj cuddled up to him and, pillowing her head on his chest, let her hand travel back to Din’s sex, which was still flushed hard. 

“You’ve got a really pretty dick,” she sighed, almost to herself, and, again, Din had no time to come up with an answer as she started a firm and lovely rhythm up and down his cock. 

Just as the dry friction was becoming a bit much, Yaj gathered wetness from between her legs, causing Din to hang on to her for dear life as his world narrowed down to the slick heat of her hand on her sex, soon joined by her other massaging his sack. He was panting in his helmet, past the stage of caring what embarrassing sounds came out of his mouth, and yet, not past hearing her whisper:

“Go on, Din, come for me, come for your wife.” 

Of course, she’d timed the remark very well, adding a squeeze on his ball and a twist on the head of his cock right as she said it, and he was helpless but to obey, coming all over his own belly. He was still tingling all over, still regaining his breath, when she asked:   
“Was the wife thing too much?”

Din chuckled weakly:

“It was remarkably effective.”

After a pause, during which Yaj reluctantly pulled away in search of a rag for cleanup, Din added, tone teasing: 

“What about you? Was that close to your  _ Cloaked Lust _ fantasy?” 

“Erg, don’t be smug, it doesn’t suit you,” she yelled from the refresher. 

Back in the room, she threw him a clean wipe and added: “I enjoyed it very much. You’d make a great Deegan Raho.”

“I’ve no kid in need of babysitting, though” he joked.

“But you’re totally the kind of guy who would adopt a baby you’d find in a crate.” 

“If they have no family? Absolutely. Foundlings are the Future.” 

Joining him under the blanket, Yaj snuggled up to Din. 

“This is the Way?” she suggested.

“This is the Way,” confirmed Din with a smile.


	9. Hearts Aflame

Where Weerden had been beautiful, but definitely too cold, Duneeden’s equator, where the affluent Core citizens had their secondary residences, was perfect. Warm year-round, but not too warm, with lush flora and harmless fauna. So perfect it looked fake, manicured forests punctuated by grand mansions and private landing pads. Guided by the instructions on the contract, Din had led the Razor Crest to such a spot, a circle of cleared jungle near his lake-side mansion. The man had been warned of their arrival and a couple of armed security guards were waiting at the edge of the woods. 

Din set the security protocols on his ship to the most aggressive settings - no point in risking an overzealous guard block their exit. Rising from the pilot’s seat, Din climbed down to the hold where he went over his equipment one last time, checking every buckle and ammunition belts. 

“Yaj, are you ready?”

The Twi’lek appeared feet-first, wearing modestly-heeled black leather boots - she had confirmed she could run in them. As she made her way down, the leather gave way to body-tight gold lamé. The outfit was a long-sleeved, turtle-neck body suit, a classic-enough cut for many space station workers, but quite shinier and tighter than any dock mechanic Din had ever seen. The hue complemented her sunset skin in a way that made Din want to peel the outfit off of her. Black satin ribbons were weaved around her lekku, matching the belt at her waist. Din knew that the seemingly flimsy belt was leather underneath, and made for clipping her holster to, though of course Din was currently wearing it and her blaster. 

Without a word, Yaj presented her wrists, and Din stepped closer to put his bindings on her. He was stepping back after checking that the fit wasn’t too tight, when he spotted something incongruous on Yaj’s face:

“Wait, what are those?”

Din gestured to his own forehead, forgetting that his meaning might not be clear with his helmet on. Yaj looked puzzled for a second before exclaiming: 

“Oh, you mean my eyebrows?”

“But you don’t have body hair...”

Yaj sighed:

“Zeime always says he can’t take me seriously if I don’t have them on. Their absence is distracting apparently.”

“So?”

“So what, I don’t want him distracted.”

“Being xenophobic is his problem, not yours.”

Yaj seemed to mull this over for a bit, and Din added:

“Does having eyebrows make you feel more ready for this?”

“No.” 

“So you’re only doing it for Zeime Kindathe’s comfort?”

Yaj grimaced and nodded: 

“You know what, you’re right.” 

The Twi’lek went to wipe her hand on her forehead, but remembered she was cuffed.

“Help me out?” she asked.

Grabbing a clean rag from his shop area, Din poured a bit of water on it, and gently rubbed the makeup off. 

“There. All set.”

“Thanks.”

Din stepped back and put the rag away. They looked at each other for a moment, before Yaj asked:

“Ready?”

“Sure. Let’s go spurn your ex-editor.” 

After one last check of his weapons, Din lowered the ramp, and pushed Yaj down it, forcing her to walk in front of him. He waved to the security guards, a human woman and a Pantoran man, and they asked a few basic questions before leading them through the forest. The walk was a leisurely twenty minutes along a meandering path designed to show the mansion under its most impressive angle after exiting the grove of trees. Zeime Kindathe himself was waiting for them on the front step of the avant-garde building, a convoluted horror of plasteel and transparisteel. The man was good-looking, a human man of fifty or so black hair stylishly coiffed to highlight the grey at his temple. He wore fitted dark robes, and the lack of wrinkles on his face spoke of an easy and wealthy life. 

“Ah, Zeime, I have not missed your ugly face for a second.” 

Yaj’s opening volley merely brought a smile to the editor’s face. 

“Ah, my dear Yaj. Your spunk is always such a joy to witness. But please, we will be more comfortable inside.”

“I’d be more comfortable free,” she pointedly shook her bound wrists. 

Zeime ignored her comment and led them up the couple of stairs at the entrance, down the hallway, and into an office, sparingly appointed with all white furniture. A woman was already there, shuffling through some paperwork. 

“Ah, and that would be the bride!” she joyously exclaimed as they entered, before spotting Din’s armor and Yaj’s cuffs. 

“Now, Helena,” warned Zeime, “remember I am paying you quite the generous travel allowance for performing this wedding.” 

The officiant frowned but remained silent.

“About payment…” Din piped up. 

“Ah yes, of course,” sighed Zeime.

The editor went to his desk, pulling a bag full of credits out a drawer. He made a show of adding a handful more before handing it to Din.

“Here’s a little bonus for you, bounty hunter. The armor is a nice touch.” 

Din pocketed the money and stepped back. 

“I’ll wait for my handcuffs,” he said. 

Zeime’s smile was cold. 

“You can be our witness. Helena?”

“I… No marriage can be performed under duress.” 

Zeime waved a warning finger at the officiant:

“Tut tut tut, don’t lie to me now, Helena. We’ve discussed it at length.”

“I thought it was for your next novel!” 

“But it is!” Zeime laughed, “Once Yaj’vabil, or rather Veilvor Ystetheec by her nom de plume, is married to me, I’ll never have to write another word. She’ll produce all the books I’ll need. The adaptation rights alone will triple my fortune. And it doesn’t hurt that she’s beautiful, I guess. The press will eat it right up.” 

He turned to Yaj at that point, smiling, looking a bit bothered when she smiled back. 

“Though you’ll have to paint some eyebrows on, you just look too weird without.” 

Ignoring the jab, the Twi’lek turned to Din:

“Hey, bounty hunter, give the paper to them?” 

Stepping forward, Din handed Helena their wedding certificate, which Master Micamberlecto had been kind enough to issue under “The Mandalorian”. The woman quickly scanned it and her face lit up, though she did her best not to smile as she announced. 

“Well, Mr. Kindathe, I’m sorry but Birren law forbids polygamy.”

Zeime walked to her and ripped the paper from her hands, his face flushing gradually darker as he read through it.

“You, you… you conniving Twi’lek whore! I pull you out of the gutter, and that’s how you thank me? I can’t believe I ever loved you.”

Yaj shook her head:

“I can’t believe I thought I ever did.” 

In a rage, Zeime pulled a lighter and lit the document on fire. 

“And you,” he said, turning to Din, “how much did she pay you for this? I thought the Guild never reneged on a contract.” 

Din shrugged: 

“I didn’t renege on my contract. She did not pay me to marry her, and I delivered her to you as instructed.” 

“Helena,” he yelled, “if I get the Mandalorian killed, can I marry her?” 

The woman, who was hurriedly gathering her papers in her travel case, answered in a strangled voice: 

“Well, yes, but you would only get the right to whatever she’d write from now on, not any of her past stuff, and you might be able to force a marriage, but I doubt you can force people to be creative…”

Throwing the smoldering piece of paper on the ground, Zeime roared: 

“I do what I want!” 

Thumping a button on his desk, he yelled: 

“Security! Capture the Twi’lek, and kill the Mandalorian.” 

As he spotted Helena running out of his office, he added: “Get the officiant too! Alive!” 

Following in the officiant’s footsteps, Din and Yaj ran out of the room, the bounty hunter disabling the cuffs on the writer’s wrist as they did. 

“Quick, here, follow me!” said the officiant, and she opened a door out of the seemingly seamless wall and crammed the three of them in a janitorial closet. 

Seconds later, steps rang past the door as guards answered the call to the office. 

“How did you…” started Yaj, but Helena shushed her. 

A second round of steps thundered past, still aimed at the office. Once it was quiet again, Helena whispered:

“One week I’ve been here, trying to avoid Zeime’s after dinner conversation. I know all the hiding spots.”

“We should leave before they start searching,” said Din.

“Give it one more minute, they’re going to exit his office and probably head for the garage through here.” 

The space was tight and, unwilling to touch Helena, Yaj tucked herself against Din, who transferred Yaj’s holstered blaster from his hip to hers. 

“You ok?” he murmured. 

She tucked her head between his pauldron on the edge of his helmet, forcing herself to breathe in deep.

“I’m good. Hoping I’m not going to faint like last time.”

“We’ll keep your adrenaline up.”

Yaj sighed, and tried to snuggle closer despite the unforgiving armor in the way. 

“You smell,” she remarked. 

Din, who knew he had started to sweat on the walk over from the Razor Crest from a mix of nerves and simple heat, made an embarrassed sound.

“Bit sweaty, and… spicy? It’s actually kind of nice.” 

Din knew what she meant: he couldn’t smell himself, but Paz smelled like that to him, probably because he ate Mandalorian food all the time, while Din often ate bland rations on the go. It was a comforting smell, a homey smell. 

“It’s the food,” he explained.

“Are you guys for real?!” interrupted Helena, “Keep quiet, will you. Once they get out, I’m running to where I parked my speeder.” 

“Could you drop us off at his ship?” asked Yaj.

“I could. What’s in it for me?”

“A ride to the nearest planet,” offered Din.

“I just need to get to the spaceport. My work shuttle is there.” 

“Deal.” 

They only had to wait a few more seconds before boots and voices emerged from the office, a woman’s stern voice ordering one group to head for the garage, then to the Razor Crest, and the other group to search the house. 

“Good thing I didn’t park in the garage,” said Helena, “we have a chance at beating them to your ship.” 

Once the last of the footsteps had faded, Helena opened the door and led the way, Din taking the rear. She ran right past Zeime’s open office, who looked on flabbergasted as they left through the front door. Her speeder was parked in the shade, a two-seater, so as Helena settled in the driver seat and powered the bike, Din sat behind her, grabbed Yaj, and sat her on his lap, facing him. 

“Grab your blaster and shoot at anything chasing us,” he instructed her as they tore down the lane towards the landing pad. 

She fumbled one-handed getting the blaster out, unwilling to let go of Din’s shoulder. 

“I’ve got you, Yaj,” he told her, tightening one arm around her and gripping the bike with his free hand. 

Rising from sitting to kneeling, Yaj moved her arms around Din’s neck, gripping her blaster two-handed. An hovercraft was making its way from the mansion, faster than the overloaded speeder bike. 

“They’ll be in range in a minute,” estimated Din, using his rearview camera for its intended purpose, “start shooting when you can tell what gender is the driver.”

“What if I kill somebody?!” 

“Unless you’re secretly a moving target specialist, I doubt you’ll do much but scare them! If we’re lucky you’ll hit the hovercraft.” 

“You ass! I’m a decent shot.” 

“Then prove it!”

Goaded, Yaj pulled the trigger, whooping when it sparked against their pursuit’s paint job. 

“Aim for the hover engine!” advised Din.

Yaj fired three more shots, two missing the hovercraft entirely, and the third one hitting the windshield, rendering it too broken to look through. With how winding the road was, the driver had no choice but to slow down or risk hitting trees. 

“How’s that, heh!” Yaj crowed in triumph. 

“Hey, lovebirds, we’re almost there, and we’ve got a welcoming committee.” 

“Helena, I’m remotely opening the ship’s ramp. Slow down, but drive right in. Yaj, I’m going to jump off the bike. You better grab on to it.” 

There was no time to argue, as they just came around the last bend in the road. Yaj yelped as Din fell from under her, and had to drop her blaster in order to seize the bike with both hands. Din rolled on himself and came back up swinging, punching one of the three security guards there before grabbing her around the neck, using her body as a shield as he advanced on the two others. Not wanting to shoot their colleague, they attempted to rush Din instead.  _ Amateurs _ , he thought, tightening his grip on his hostage’s jugular until she passed out, then dropping her to the ground. His hands now free against two opponents whose body armor was designed for blaster shots rather than blunt force, Din literally threw his weight around, slipping under the male Pantoran’s guard and headbutting him in the jaw, an instant knockout. The female human got a kick in to his leg, well-aimed as she hit the side, less protected by his armor. Turning with the momentum of her kick rather than trying to block it, Din dodged her follow-through punch and, distracting her with a jab from each fist she easily parried, he kneed her in the stomach. 

All the security dispatched, he ran up to the Razor Crest, using his vambrace’s control panel to initiate the takeoff sequence. He slipped up the closing ramp just as the hovercraft arrived on the scene. Reactivating the security protocols had the Razor Crest fire a warning salvo at the incoming vehicle which backed away hurriedly. 

“Maker, you are kriffing brilliant!”

Yaj grabbed Din by the shoulders and delivered a loud smack to his helmet, almost accurately where his mouth was under the beskar. Laughing, Din remarked: 

“Where not completely safe yet. Come on, you two secure Helena’s bike while the engines warm up. Four minutes to lift.”   
Three minutes and some seconds later, Helena yelled they were ready, and Din lost no time in yelling back: 

“Hold on to something! They’re getting bolder out there.” 

And indeed, the Razor Crest took to the air with a rumble punctuated by the tell-tale noise of blaster shots hitting its shielding. Din selected a couple of options on the navcomputer, and soon they were headed for the spaceport. Surprised at not having been joined by the women, he went to poke his head in the hold. Yaj and Helena had somehow managed to fall on top of each other, then get tangled in some of the netting used to secure cargo. Or maybe the other way around. 

“Little help?” suggested Yaj, and Din, chuckling to himself, went to free them. Yaj was a bit wobbly when she stood up, and Din caught her. 

“Adrenaline comedown?”

“I think so,” she sighed, leaning her forehead on his helm as he propped her up, taking a few deep breaths right there. A minute passed with Helena watching them, looking worried, but Yaj eventually stood fully.

“Ok, it passed, I feel better.”

Din reluctantly let go of her, focusing instead on checking the bike’s fastenings over.

“We’ll be at the spaceport in another thirty minutes,” he informed the others, “Will you be good from there, Helena?”

“Yes, I’ll leave right away on my shuttle. My thanks for getting me out of there, Mandalorian, Yaj’vabil.”

“Thanks to you, Helena. We would have been caught in that hallway without you,” answered Yaj. 

Forty-five minutes later, Din and Yaj bid Helena farewell, then bought fuel and food at the spaceport - Zeime had forgotten to deactivate the line of credit he had assigned Din, who wasn’t above taking advantage. Having put away their supplies, they sat in the cockpit. 

“Ready for takeoff?” asked Din.

“Aye, aye, captain,” joked Yaj. “How long will the trip back be again?”

“Four galactic days, give or take.”

“Four days, huh. I wonder what we’ll do to fill the time.” 

Yaj’s tone clearly indicated she had not one, but many suggestions. Din hummed neutraly in answer. He had a couple of ideas himself.

And if Din was grinning like an idiot under his helmet as they left Duneeden behind, well, that was just for him and the Way to know.


	10. The Flame and the Flower

Din was never going to live it down. The day before, along with a consequent chunk of money wired directly to the Covert’s account, had come two things: a contract offering 15% in sales to Din Djarin for Veil Ysthetheec’s new series  _ Beskar in Bloom _ , and a pre-release copy of the first installment,  _ Beskar Hearts Melt Too _ . Despite still needing to be edited before publication, the book already had over 200,000 pre-orders on the holonet based on its blurb only. It was all the Covert had been talking about for the past 12 hours or so, most of which Din had spent evading conversation. But of course, when one has discovered all of one’s hiding holes while looking for a secluded spot to engage in some extra-curricular activities, one can always be found by one’s co-conspirator. When Paz's large frame squeezed through the small door to a forgotten storage room for broken furniture, Din stood up, resigned to an uncomfortable conversation.   


“One-night marriages, really Din? That’s going to give some dumb teenagers some really bad ideas.”

“She... extrapolated.”

“Hmm, really? There’s a sparring session in there that bears a striking resemblance to some memories I have.”

“Are you... mad?”

Paz’s shoulders slumped.

“Bit jealous, to say the truth. Some of those sex scenes I’ve no recollections of, they’re all yours. And hers.”

“Paz...”

“And very, very hot too.”

“So you’re envious, or jealous?”

“Envious of you getting out there, sleeping with clearly accomplished women, yes. Jealous because you landed us a mostly accurate, spread-like-the-Empire piece of cultural propaganda. You did more for Mandalorian cultural revival and appreciation in a week than we’ve managed in a decade.”

“That was... mostly incidental.”

This time, when Paz shook his head, Din knew he was amused.

“No way, Djarin. I’m sure you waltzed in there being your usual perfectly Mandalorian self, and she had no choice but to start taking notes. I’m no poet myself, but sometimes, knowing you, I feel inclined.”

“...”

“Are you blushing under there?”

Paz lightly tapped on Din’s helmet, and after one more agonized second of pure embarrassment mixed with unbearable fondness, Din closed the distance between them and forcefully bumped their helms.

“You fucker,” he gritted, “I’m probably blushing to my belly button if you want to check for yourself.”

Paz hugged Din, armor clanking against armor, and it was his turn to sound pained:

“Don’t tempt me, Din, we’ve got assembly with the Alor in fifteen minutes.”

Sighing, Din extricated himself from the embrace.

“Duty calls, then. But later tonight... Yaj’s given me some ideas I think you’ll enjoy.”

Paz’s posture shifted minutely, in the way Din knew meant his codpiece had just gotten quite uncomfortable. With a swagger in his step he did nothing to hide, Din exited the room, heading for the Armory.

All in all, he could use more missions like this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it everybody.   
> I hope you have enjoyed this silly ride through the tropiest galaxy there ever was. Comments are lovely, and I adore them dearly, please consider leaving one!   
> PS: who wants a Din/Paz being-horny-idiots-in-their-youth oneshot?


End file.
